Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/329

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. .m> which is at present called the marquisate of Lusace, CHAP, there existed, in ancient times, a sacred wood, the ' awful seat of the superstition of the Suevi. None were Origin and permitted to enter the holy precincts, without confess- [^^^^ • ingj by their servile bonds and suppliant posture, the im- mediate presence of the sovereign deity". Patriotism contributed as well as devotion to consecrate the Son- nenwald, or wood of the Semnones". It was universally believed, that the nation had received its first existence on that sacred spot. At stated periods, the numerous tribes who gloried in the Suevic blood, resorted thither by their ambassadors ; and the memory of their com- mon extraction was perpetuated by barbaric rites and human sacrifices. The wide extended name of Suevi filled the interior countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to those of the Danube. They were dis- tinguished from the other Germans by their peculiar mode of dressing their long hair, which they gathered into a rude knot on the crown of the head ; and they delighted in an ornament that showed their ranks more lofty and terrible in the eyes of the enemy ". Jealous as the Germans were of military renown, they all con- fessed the superior valour of the Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, who with a vast army encountered the dictator Caesar, declared that they esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people, to whose arms the immortal gods themselves were unequal?. In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumer- A mixed able swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Mein, gugji^^- and in the neighbourhood of the Roman provinces, in sume the quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory '^. The hasty A^^manni • army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation ; and, as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, or All- men; to denote at once their various lineage, and their •" Tacit. Germ. 38. " Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25. A proud separation! t* Caesar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7. 1 Victor in Caracal.; Dion Cassius, Ixvii. p. 1350. VOL. I. X
 * • Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suevorum ingenui a servis separantur.